Companies that have energy innovations to peddle can benefit from groups with know-how that the Small Business Administration has organized and calls clusters, according to retired Rear Adm. Steven Smith, now director of the SBA’s Office of Disaster Planning and Risk Management. The process has similarities to the ABC TV show “Shark Tank,” where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to deep-pocketed moguls.

“If you’re a small business, you may think you have some great innovation, but you may not know the market very well,” Smith told attendees Thursday at an expo hosted by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. “Once we can find the innovative small business, we can facilitate it.”

The clusters – groups of businesses, industry leaders and academic institutions – can help small businesses to partner with a larger company or find investment funding, he said. Or they can let a company know if it is wasting its time on a technology that another company has already gotten further along.

The Minnesota cluster brings together players in 17 states to address power and energy innovation.